New Balance 9060 New Spruce

Spruce green is a neutral if you treat it like one. Recipe one is earth on earth: brown or khaki wide leg trousers, a cream knit, a canvas jacket, so the green sits as the darkest note in a warm outfit. Recipe two is a cold contrast: grey sweatpants with a black hoodie, where the green stops the fit from going monotone. The shoe carries real volume, so give it trousers with width and avoid a slim taper. It is a walking and travel shoe rather than a training one. Brush dust off before it sets into the panels, clean with mild soap on a soft cloth, and dry out of direct sun so the green does not fade unevenly.

The 9060 is what New Balance does now that its archive is a fashion asset. That status came from the 990 family becoming the American dad shoe, the grey suburban comfort choice documented on Steve Jobs, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner and Hilary Duff, then being reclaimed by normcore and high fashion in the 2010s. The brand made the shift official by appointing Aime Leon Dore founder Teddy Santis creative director of Made in USA in April 2021. Where that programme handles the archive respectfully, the 9060 handles it playfully. A muted green pair sits between the two, strange in shape but grounded in colour, which is why it works outside sneaker circles.

A green base needs careful tonal work or the panels disappear, so a colourway like New Spruce usually separates layers by finish and shade depth rather than by contrast colour, letting the 9060's sculpted side wall and its exaggerated midsole shaping carry the form. The block N sits into that shaping rather than on top of it. Underneath, the model inherits the substantial underfoot volume of the 99x line and New Balance's long-standing ENCAP approach, where a moulded polyurethane rim encapsulates a soft EVA core to provide stability without deadening shock absorption. Expect weight and a high stack feel. As with every New Balance, the width fitting is the sizing decision that actually matters.